The Elizabeth Heyrick Society would like to thank the University of Leicester’s Heritage Hub for the invitation to attend the Heritage Day on 21 March 2026 in the university’s Percy Gee Building. It was a welcome chance for trustees Jess Jenkins, Emma Lee, Susan Pares and Joshua Thorpe to meet visitors and raise awareness of the society and its aims.
This time, there seemed to be more awareness of Elizabeth Heyrick’s name, which was pleasing. Some visitors remembered our stall from other fairs we had attended and some gave complimentary mentions of Jess Jenkins’ recent local talks on Elizabeth Heyrick.
There were the usual questions about whether there was any connection between Elizabeth Heyrick and the Herrick family or whether she knew Susanna Watts. Elizabeth Heyrick and Susanna Watts were friends and co-edited The Hummingbird, a newsletter which had articles on the West Indian sugar boycott and anti-slavery campaigns as well as some of Susanna’s poems.
Someone asked if Elizabeth Heyrick was a Quaker. She became a Quaker after her husband’s death. Emerging from her bereavement, she spent some time with friends in Yorkshire who were Quakers and briefly taught at a Quaker school. This in turn reminded her of her own Quaker schooling and she returned to Leicester with plans to convert her marital home, Bow Bridge, into a school and made a successful application to join the Leicester Friends Meeting.
The most unusual question of the day was about tramlines on Gallowtree Gate in Leicester. From around 1904 to 1948 Leicester city had a network of trams, centred on Gallowtree Gate near the Clock Tower. Most of the trams ran east, west or north of the Clock Tower, out to Braunstone, Melton or Humberstone. When the trams stopped, the lines were buried. The tramlines became a factor when deciding on the location of the Sporting Success statue on the north end of Gallowtree Gate. However, the Elizabeth Heyrick Society is looking at a location to the south of Gallowtree Gate, nearer the Market Place Approach. There is only one tramline that runs south to Clarendon Park, and it hugs the building line on the eastern side of Gallowtree Gate so is not anticipated to present a problem to the potential location for a statue for Elizabeth Heyrick.
Thanks go to the visitors who made a donation or bought an Elizabeth Heyrick tea towel from the Radical Tea Towel Company.
